Frankenmuth IPA wins gold ahead of Bell's Two Hearted

Frankenmuth Brewery’s Batch 69, right, won gold in the the 2015 World Expo event.(Photo: Robert Allen Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo

An underdog India pale ale with a tweaked recipe edged out a Michigan favorite to win a top honor in the 2015 World Expo of Beer competition in Frankenmuth.

The Batch 69 American-style IPA won Frankenmuth Brewery its first gold medal at the event, competing in a category that included 61 entries.

Steve Buszka, 48, changed the beer's recipe in November, shortly after moving there and taking over as brewmaster. He added dry-hopping and changed the type and timing of hops used in the beer's brewing process.

"The Batch 69 is a very aromatic, West Coast-style IPA, and it's going to have little bits of citrus and pine aroma," he said, adding that the flavors "morph into a balance" of hops with some caramel, leaving a "lingering soft bitterness." The beer's stats are 6.9% alcohol by volume, 69 international bittering units.

The brewery is among dozens offering a total of more than 400 beers at the Friday and Saturday's World Expo of Beer sampling event in the city of Frankenmuth's Heritage Park. Jim Brown, the director of the competition associated with the festival, said the event is one of the top-five largest in the U.S., and is expected to draw about 15,000 people this weekend.

The IPA silver medal went to Bell's Two Hearted Ale, which has won numerous accolades and is known as one of the best IPAs in the country. Buszka, who previously brewed for Bell's, said he and Robert Skalla came up with the recipe for Two Hearted.

But Bell's owner Larry Bell said Buszka didn't play a role in the creation of Two Hearted. Skalla, who died in 2007, created the recipe while Buszka was a brewer on staff, Bell said, adding that Two Hearted "really came into its own" after John Mallett took over and made adjustments.

Both Frankenmuth and Bell's breweries are among the roughly 67 participating in the weekend World Expo of Beer festival and beer sampling.

"We don't go to any event because of medals," Bell said. "We go there for consumer outreach and the camaraderie with other brewers."

Most of the brewers are from Michigan, although breweries from California to Massachusetts compete. A blind panel of 28 judges approved through the Beer Judge Certification Program selected the winners.

Competition director Jim Brown said he can see why Batch 69 won gold.

"I don't like IPAs because most of them are just too hoppy," Brown said, adding that this one isn't over-the-top with bitterness. "Batch 69 is balanced ... with a lot of flowery aromatics. The balance: I'm sure that's why it won."

Buszka, who also has brewed for Potosi and Oso brewing companies in Wisconsin, said he wasn't expecting the gold medal when the results were announced ahead of this weekend's event. He said it's "a great honor" to win, and that he was pleased with the judges ranking Batch 69 just ahead of his former employer's Two Hearted Ale.

"It's actually pretty cool," he said. "I can't lie, I had a little smile on my face after that whole scenario."